With increasing development of scientific technologies, the method for storing documents is changed from the filing of paper documents to the storage of the electronic files of the documents. Generally, a scanning apparatus is a device for scanning the contents of paper documents into electronic files, which are then spread, processed or stored.
In the early stage, the scanning apparatus can only scan one side of the document. For scanning both sides of the document, after one side of the document has been scanned, the document should be manually turned over so as to scan the other side of the document. However, the process of manually turning over the document is troublesome. For solving the drawbacks, an automatic document feeder is usually integrated into a flatbed scanning apparatus. Consequently, a stack of documents can be successively transported by the automatic document feeder and the duplex scanning operation can be performed by the flatbed scanning apparatus without the need of manually turning over the documents. The automatic document feeder is not only used with the scanning module of the scanning apparatus. Nevertheless, the automatic document feeder may be used with a printing module of a printing apparatus.
Conventionally, the automatic document feeder and the flatbed scanning apparatus are integrated as a sheet-feeding type scanning apparatus. Hereinafter, the structure of a conventional automatic document feeder will be illustrated with reference to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a schematic side view illustrating the automatic document feeder and the flatbed scanning apparatus of a conventional sheet-feeding type scanning apparatus. As shown in FIG. 1, the conventional automatic document feeder 1 comprises a document pick-up module 10, an upper cover 11, a separation pad 12, a conveying channel 13, a document input tray 14, a document discharge tray 15, plural conveying roller assemblies 16, and a document discharge roller assembly 17. The document input tray 14 is used for placing plural documents S thereon. The document discharge tray 15 is disposed under the document input tray 14. After the plural documents S are scanned, the scanned documents S are placed on the document discharge tray 15. The document pick-up module 10 is disposed under the upper cover 11 for transporting the plural documents S from the document input tray 14 into the conveying channel 13. The document pick-up module 10 comprises a pick-up roller 101 and a separation roller 102. The pick-up roller 101 is used for contacting the plural documents S, thereby transporting the plural documents S. The separation roller 102 is used for separating the uppermost document S from the underlying documents S, so that only a single document S is fed into the conveying channel 13 at each time. The separation pad 12 is disposed under the separation roller 102 for providing a friction force to the document S that is in contact with the separation pad 12, thereby facilitating the separation roller 102 to transport a single document S into the conveying channel 13.
The plural conveying roller assemblies 16 are disposed in the conveying channel 13 for moving the plural documents S along the conveying channel 13. The document discharge roller assembly 17 is located beside the document discharge tray 15 for ejecting the plural documents S to the document discharge tray 15. The flatbed scanning apparatus 2 is disposed under the automatic document feeder 1. The flatbed scanning apparatus 2 comprises a scanning module 20. The conveying channel 13 goes through a region over the scanning module 20. Consequently, when the document S is transported across the region over the scanning module 20, the document S is scanned by the scanning module 20.
Hereinafter, the operations of the automatic document feeder 1 will be illustrated with reference to FIG. 1. When the conventional automatic document feeder 1 is operated in a normal working mode, the document pick-up module 10 is swung downwardly to be distant from the upper cover 11 with the separation roller 102 serving as a fulcrum. Consequently, the pick-up roller 101 of the document pick-up module 10 is contacted with the plural documents S on the document input tray 14, thereby transporting the plural documents S. During the process of transporting the plural documents S by the pick-up roller 101, the uppermost document S of the plural documents S is contacted with the separation roller 102, and the lowermost document S of the plural documents S is contacted with the separation pad 12. In response to the friction force provided by the separation pad 12, the uppermost document S is separated from the underlying documents and fed into the conveying channel 13.
Next, the document S is transported by the plural conveying roller assemblies 16, so that the document S is moved along the conveying channel 13. When the document S is moved across the region over the scanning module 20, the document S is scanned by the scanning module 20, so that a scanned image of the document S is acquired. Afterwards, the scanned document S is transported by the document discharge roller assembly 17 to be ejected to the document discharge tray 15. Under this circumstance, the scanning operation on the uppermost document S has been completed. The processes of scanning the remaining documents S are similar to the above process, and are not redundantly described herein. After the plural documents S are scanned, the plural documents S may be removed from the document discharge tray 15.
In a case that the user wants to remove the plural documents S from the document discharge tray 15, some drawbacks may occur. For example, since the document discharge tray 15 is disposed under the document input tray 14, the document input tray 14 becomes hindrance from taking out the plural documents S. That is, the user's hand fails to be directly put into the region under the document input tray 14 to be contacted with the plural documents S. For solving the above drawbacks, the document input tray 14 should be uplifted by one hand of the user. Consequently, the document input tray 14 is moved upwardly in a specified direction C, and the plural documents S on the document discharge tray 15 are exposed (see FIG. 2). Then, the plural documents S are removed from the document discharge tray 15 by the other hand of the user. Then, the document input tray 14 is moved downwardly, so that the document input tray 14 is returned to the original position. In other words, the process of removing the plural documents S is not user-friendly.
Therefore, there is a need of providing an automatic document feeder for easily removing the documents from the document discharge tray.